Colorado State University Stanford Prison Experiment Research Paper Revisit Philip Zimbardo’s (1971) Stanford University Prison Experiment. Analyze the exp

Colorado State University Stanford Prison Experiment Research Paper Revisit Philip Zimbardo’s (1971) Stanford University Prison Experiment. Analyze the experiment in terms of causality, controlling patterns, and its growth mode.

What lessons can be learned from this experiment that can be generalized to business social systems, such as organizational design/organizational structures?

Your well-written paper should meet the following requirements:

Be four to six pages in length.
Be formatted according to APA
Include at least five scholarly or peer-reviewed Record: 1
Title: Revisiting the Stanford Prison Experiment: a Lesson in the Power of
Situation.
Authors: Zimbardo, Philip G.1
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education. 3/30/2007, Vol. 53 Issue 30, pB6-B7. 2p.
1 Color Photograph.
Document Type: Book Review
Subject Terms: *GOOD & evil
*NONFICTION
Reviews & Products: LUCIFER Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, The (Book)
People: ZIMBARDO, Philip G.
Abstract: This article presents a review of the book “The Lucifer Effect:
Understanding How Good People Turn Evil,” by Philip G. Zimbardo.
Author Affiliations:
1Professor
emeritus of psychology, Stanford University
Full Text Word Count: 3004
ISSN: 0009-5982
Accession Number: 25307670
Database: Academic Search Premier
Revisiting the Stanford Prison Experiment: a Lesson in the Power of Situation
~~~~~~~~
BY THE 1970s, psychologists had done a series of studies establishing the social power of groups. They
showed, for example, that groups of strangers could persuade people to believe statements that were
obviously false. Psychologists had also found that research participants were often willing to obey authority
figures even when doing so violated their personal beliefs. The Yale studies by Stanley Milgram in 1963
demonstrated that a majority of ordinary citizens would continually shock an innocent man, even up to nearlethal levels, if commanded to do so by someone acting as an authority. The “authority” figure in this case was
merely a high-school biology teacher who wore a lab coat and acted in an official manner. The majority of
people shocked their victims over and over again despite increasingly desperate pleas to stop.
In my own work, I wanted to explore the fictional notion from William Golding’s Lord of the Flies about the
power of anonymity to unleash violent behavior. In one experiment from 1969, female students who were made
to feel anonymous and given permission for aggression became significantly more hostile than students with
their identities intact. Those and a host of other social-psychological studies were showing that human nature
was more pliable than previously imagined and more responsive to situational pressures than we cared to
acknowledge. In sum, these studies challenged the sacrosanct view that inner determinants of behavior-personality traits, morality, and religious upbringing–directed good people down righteous paths.
Missing from the body of social-science research at the time was the direct confrontation of good versus evil,
of good people pitted against the forces inherent in bad situations. It was evident from everyday life that smart
people made dumb decisions when they were engaged in mindless groupthink, as in the disastrous Bay of Pigs
invasion by the smart guys in President John F. Kennedy’s cabinet. It was also clear that smart people
surrounding President Richard M. Nixon, like Henry A. Kissinger and Robert S. McNamara, escalated the
Vietnam War when they knew, and later admitted, it was not winnable. They were caught up in the mental
constraints of cognitive dissonance–the discomfort from holding two conflicting thoughts–and were unable to
cut bait even though it was the only rational strategy to save lives and face. Those examples, however, with
their different personalities, political agendas, and motives, complicated any simple conceptual attempt to
understand what went wrong in these situations.
I decided that what was needed was to create a situation in a controlled experimental setting in which we
could array on one side a host of variables, such as role-playing, coercive rules, power differentials, anonymity,
group dynamics, and dehumanization. On the other side, we lined up a collection of the “best and brightest” of
young college men in collective opposition to the might of a dominant system. Thus in 1971 was born the
Stanford prison experiment, more akin to Greek drama than to university psychology study. I wanted to know
who wins–good people or an evil situation–when they were brought into direct confrontation.
First we established that all 24 participants were physically and mentally healthy, with no history of crime or
violence, so as to be sure that initially they were all “good apples.” They were paid $15 a day to participate.
Each of the student volunteers was randomly assigned to play the role of prisoner or guard in a setting
designed to convey a sense of the psychology of imprisonment (in actuality, a mock prison set up in the
basement of the Stanford psychology department). Dramatic realism infused the study. Palo Alto police agreed
to “arrest” the prisoners and book them, and once at the prison, they were given identity numbers, stripped
naked, and deloused. The prisoners wore large smocks with no underclothes and lived in the prison 24/7 for a
planned two weeks; three sets of guards each patrolled eight-hour shifts, Throughout the experiment, I served
as the prison “superintendent,” assisted by two graduate students.
Initially nothing much happened as the students awkwardly tried out their assigned roles in their new uniforms.
However, all that changed suddenly on the morning of the second day following a rebellion, when the prisoners
barricaded themselves inside the cells by putting their beds against the door. Suddenly the guards perceived
the prisoners as “dangerous”; they had to be dealt with harshly to demonstrate who was boss and who was
powerless. At first, guard abuses were retaliation for taunts and disobedience. Over time, the guards became
ever more abusive, and some even delighted in sadistically tormenting their prisoners. Though physical
punishment was restricted, the guards on each shift were free to make up their own rules, and they invented a
variety of psychological tactics to demonstrate their dominance over their powerless charges.
Nakedness was a common punishment, as was placing prisoners’ heads in nylon stocking caps (to simulate
shaved heads); chaining their legs; repeatedly waking them throughout the night for hourlong counts; and
forcing them into humiliating “fun and games” activities. Let’s go beyond those generalizations to review some
of the actual behaviors that were enacted in the prison simulation. They are a lesson in “creative evil,” in how
certain social settings can transform intelligent young men into perpetrators of psychological abuse.
Prison Log, Night 5
The prisoners, who have not broken down emotionally under the incessant stress the guards have been
subjecting them to since their aborted rebellion on Day 2, wearily line up against the wall to recite their ID
numbers and to demonstrate that they remember all 17 prisoner rules of engagement. It is the 1 a.m. count,
the last one of the night before the morning shift comes on at 2 a.m. No matter how well the prisoners do, one
of them gets singled out for punishment. They are yelled at, cursed out, and made to say abusive things to
each other. “Tell him he’s a prick,” yells one guard. And each prisoner says that to the next guy in line. Then the
sexual harassment that had started to bubble up the night before resumes as the testosterone flows freely in
every direction.
“See that hole in the ground? Now do 25 push-ups [expletive] that hole! You hear me!” One after another, the
prisoners obey like automatons as the guard shoves them down. After a brief consultation, our toughest guard
(nicknamed “John Wayne” by the prisoners) and, his sidekick devise a new sexual game. “OK, now pay
attention. You three are going to be female camels. Get over here and bend over, touching your hands to the
floor.” When they do, their naked butts are exposed became they have no underwear beneath their smocks.
John Wayne continues with obvious glee, “Now you two, you’re male camels. Stand behind the female camels
and hump them.”
The guards all giggle at this double-entendre. Although their bodies never touch, the helpless prisoners begin
to simulate sodomy by making thrusting motions. They are then dismissed back to their cells to get an hour of
sleep before the next shift comes on, and the abuse continues.
~~~~~~~~
By Day 5, five of the student prisoners have to be released early because of extreme stress. (Recall that each of
them was physically healthy and psychologically stable less than a week before.) Most of those who remain
adopt a zombielike attitude and posture, totally obedient to escalating guard demands.
Terminating the Torment
I was forced to terminate the projected two-weeklong study after only six days because it was running out of
control. Dozens of people had come down to our “little shop of horrors,” seen some of the abuse or its effects,
and said nothing. A prison chaplain, parents, and friends had visited the prisoners, and psychologists and
others on the parole board saw a realistic prison simulation, an experiment in action, but did not challenge me
to stop it. The one exception erupted just before the time of the prison-log notation on Night 5.
About halfway through the study, I had invited some psychologists who knew little about the experiment to
interview the staff and participants, to get an outsiders’ evaluation of how it was going. A former doctoral
student of mine, Christina Maslach, a new assistant professor at the University of California at Berkeley, came
down late Thursday night to have dinner with me. We had started dating recently and were becoming
romantically involved. When she saw the prisoners lined up with bags over their heads, their legs chained, and
guards shouting abuses at them while herding them to the toilet, she got upset and refused my suggestion to
observe what was happening in this “crucible of human nature.” Instead she ran out of the basement, and I
followed, berating her for being overly sensitive and not realizing the important lessons taking place here.
“It is terrible what YOU are doing to those boys!” she yelled at me. Christina made evident in that one statement
that human beings were suffering not prisoners, not experimental subjects, not paid volunteers. And further, I
was the one who was-personally responsible for the horrors she had witnessed (and which she assumed were
even worse when no outsider was looking). She also made clear that if this person I had become–the heartless
superintendent of the Stanford prison–was the real me, not the caring, generous person she had come to like,
she wanted nothing more to do with me.
That powerful jolt of reality snapped me back to my senses. I agreed that we had gone too far, that whatever
was to be learned about situational power was already indelibly etched on our videos, data logs, and minds;
there was no need to continue. I too had been transformed by my role in that situation to become a person that
under any other circumstances I detest–an uncaring, authoritarian boss man. In retrospect, I believe that the
main reason I did not end the study sooner resulted from the conflict created in me by my dual roles as
principal investigator, and thus guardian of the research ethics of the experiment, and as the prison
superintendent, eager to maintain the stability of my prison at all costs. I now realize that there should have
been someone with authority above mine, someone in charge of oversight of the experiment, who surely would
have blown the whistle earlier.
By the time Christina intervened, it was the middle of the night, so I had to make plans to terminate the next
morning. The released prisoners and guards had to be called back and many logistics handled before I could
say, “The Stanford prison experiment is officially closed.” When I went back down to the basement, I witnessed
the final scene of depravity, the “camel humping” episode. I was so glad that it would be the last such abuse I
would see or be responsible for.
Good Apples in Bad Barrels and Bad Barrel Makers
The situational forces in that “bad barrel” had overwhelmed the goodness of most of those infected by their
viral power. It is hard to imagine how a seeming game of “cops and robbers” played by college kids, with a few
academics (our research team) watching, could have descended into what became a hellhole for many in that
basement. How could a mock prison, an experimental simulation, become “a prison run by psychologists, not
by the state,” in the words of one suffering prisoner? How is it possible for “good personalities” to be so
dominated by a “bad situation”? You had to be there to believe that human character could be so swiftly
transformed in a matter of days–not only the traits of the students, but of me, a well-seasoned adult. Most of
the visitors to our prison also fell under the spell. For example, individual sets of parents observing their son’s
haggard appearance after a few days of hard labor and long nights of disrupted sleep said they “did not want to
make trouble” by taking their kid home or challenging the system. Instead they obeyed our authority and let
some of their sons experience full-blown emotional meltdowns later on. We had created a dominating
behavioral context whose power insidiously frayed the seemingly impervious values of compassion, fair play,
and belief in a just world.
The situation won; humanity lost. Out the window went the moral upbringings of these young men, as well as
their middle-class civility. Power ruled, and unrestrained power became an aphrodisiac. Power without
surveillance by higher authorities was a poisoned chalice that transformed character in unpredictable
directions. I believe that most of us tend to be fascinated with evil not because of its consequences but
because evil is a demonstration of power and domination over others.
Current Relevance
Such research is now in an ethical time capsule, since institutional review boards will not allow social
scientists to repeat it (although experiments like it have been replicated on several TV shows and in artistic
renditions). Nevertheless, the Stanford prison experiment is now more popular then ever in its 36-year history.
A Google search of “experiment” reveals it to be fourth among some 132 million hits, and sixth among some
127 million hits on “prison.” Some of this recent interest comes from the apparent similarities of the
experiment’s abuses with the images of depravity in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison–of nakedness, bagged heads, and
sexual humiliation.
Among the dozen investigations of the Abu Ghraib abuses, the one chaired by James R. Schlesinger, the
former secretary of defense, boldly proclaims that the landmark Stanford study “provides a cautionary tale for
all military detention operations.” In contrasting the relatively benign environment of the Stanford prison
experiment, the report makes evident that “in military detention operations, soldiers work under stressful
combat conditions that are far from benign.” The implication is that those combat conditions might be
expected to generate even more extreme abuses of power than were observed in our mock prison experiment.
However, the Schlesinger report notes that military leaders did not heed that earlier warning in any way. They
should have–a psychological perspective is essential to understanding the transformation of human character
in response to special situational forces. “The potential for abusive treatment of detainees during the Global
War on Terrorism was entirely predictable based on a fundamental understanding of the principles of social
psychology coupled with an awareness of numerous known environmental risk factors,” the report says.
“Findings from the field of social psychology suggest that the conditions of war and the dynamics of detainee
operations carry inherent risks for human mistreatment, and therefore must be approached with great caution
and careful planning and training.” (Unfortunately this vital conclusion is buffed in an appendix.)
The Stanford prison experiment is but one of a host of studies in psychology that reveal the extent to which our
behavior can be transformed from its usual set point to deviate in unimaginable ways, even to readily accepting
a dehumanized conception of others, as “animals,” and to accepting spurious rationales for why pain will be
good for them.
The implications of this research for law are considerable, as legal scholars are beginning to recognize. The
criminal-justice system, for instance, focuses primarily on individual defendants and their “state of mind” and
largely ignores situational forces. The Model Penal Code states: “A person is not guilty of an offense unless his
liability is based on conduct that includes a voluntary act or the omission to perform an act of which he is
physically capable.” As my own experiment revealed, and as a great deal of social-psychological research
before and since has confirmed, we humans exaggerate the extent to which our actions are voluntary and
rationally chosen–or, put differently, we all understate the power of the situation. My claim is not that
individuals are incapable of criminal culpability; rather, it is that, like the horrible behavior brought out by my
experiment in good, normal young men, the situation and the system creating it also must share in the
responsibility for illegal and immoral behavior.
If the goals of the criminal system are simply to blame and punish individual perpetrators–to get our pound of
flesh–then focusing almost exclusively on the individual defendant makes sense. If, however, the goal is
actually to reduce the behavior that we now call “criminal” (and its resultant suffering), and to assign
punishments that correspond with culpability, then the criminal-justice system is obligated, much as I was in
the Stanford prison experiment, to confront the situation and our role in creating and perpetuating it. It is clear
to most reasonable observers that the social experiment of imprisoning society’s criminals for long terms is a
failure on virtually all levels. By recognizing the situational determinants of behavior, we can move to a more
productive public-health model of prevention and intervention, and away from the individualistic medical and
religious “sin” model that has never worked since its inception during the Inquisition.
The critical message then is to be sensitive about our vulnerability to subtle but powerful situational forces
and, by such awareness, be more able to overcome those forces. Group pressures, authority symbols,
dehumanization of others, imposed anonymity, dominant ideologies that enable spurious ends to justify
immoral means, lack of surveillance, and other situational forces can work to transform even some of the best
of us into Mr. Hyde monsters, without the benefit of Dr. Jekyll’s chemical elixir. We must be more aware of how
situational variables can influence our behavior. Further, we must also be aware that veiled behind the power of
the situation is the greater power of the system, which creates and maintains complicity at the highest military
and governmental levels–with evil-inducing situations, like those at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay prisons.
PHOTO (COLOR): Above and right.” participants in the 1971 Stanford prison experiment
~~~~~~~~
By Philip G. Zimbardo
Philip G. Zimbardo is a professor emeritus of psychology at Stanford University and author of The Lucifer
Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, published this month by Random House.
The Chronicle of Higher Education: (http://chronicle.com.csuglobal.idm.oclc.org) 1-800-728-2803 Copyright of
Chronicle of Higher Education is the property of Chronicle of Higher Education and its content may not be
copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder’s express written
permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.

Purchase answer to see full
attachment